Iets lekkers met een bite!

Baking brownies is always a recipe for succes. After making your family, friends and/or collegues happy, you’re guaranteed to return home with an empty box and a lot of new best friends.

Most people I know would bake their brownies using in instant mix. I’m always finding myself on the same side of this argument: It really really really is not easier (let alone cheaper) to use those packages. In the end, you’re still adding and mixing together the same amount of ingredients. Especially with brownies, the difference in taste, appearance and consistency is enormous. Those mixes will get you your ordinary chocolate (pound) cake. Sure, that’s not bad at all, but brownies are in a whole another league!

That’s why in my first post on this baking-fanatic blog I’m revealing my brownie recipe. It is the one thing I have baked most over the last few years, and it is the one thing I will be baking most for the rest of my life, since I’m marrying my brownie’s #1 fan.

This brownie does not contain baking powder, which makes it beautifully rich and dark. It’s a fairly easy recipe (you don’t need a mixer; just a fork will do), but if you feel like going the extra mile, you can add a caramel topping.

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.

Melt the chocolate and butter au bain marie, and in a second bowl, mix together the flower, sugars and salt.

Let the chocolate-butter mixture cool for a couple of minutes, add it to the flower-sugar mixture and add the eggs, one at a time.

Poor the batter in a squared oven pan (lined with baking paper, just to be sure). Optional: press coarsly chopped macademia nuts in, and bake it for 20-25 minutes.

Cook the condensed milk with the dates and brown sugar (and a pinch of salt) in a small sauce pan. Keep stirring vigorously, preferrably with a silicon spade, to make sure you don’t get burnt bits, sticking to your pan. After a few minutes, the mixture turns a nice caramel-brown, and is ready to be poored onto the brownie. After cooling, it will become nice and firm.